This WordPress study guide is very useful for freelancing programmers, non-techie bloggers and business owners who wish to learn and build their own websites. This guide however, useful for experienced and inexperienced programmers.
Why Should You Learn Programming Languages?
WordPress has a simple user interface that is easy for anyone to understand but why do you need programming? You must understand that WordPress is not a web development tool and it is just a web platform. It makes a big difference. You need to user programming codes to add or delete new functionalities.
Learn The Basic Of Programming
WordPress is a great platform however learning basics of programming will help you to design and develop a competitive website on your own. Understanding the programming language will help you to fix bugs and modify major and minor changes on your website.
HTML: They are used to design the front end of every website. It is an easy language that you can learn and make changes on the appearance of your website.
CSS: Every website use CSS and they work along with HTML in designing adding a new look to the website.
PHP: You will not see this anywhere on the website but PHP is helpful in creating all the functionality of the website. This is where the real programming takes place!
MySQL: You need a database for your website where the entire information will be saved and stored. You must learn the best way to communicate between the PHP and database that makes the website working!
Installing WordPress For Your Website
There are different ways to install WordPress on your website.
- Use cPanel to install WordPress
- Download the WordPress source file and upload them to the server through FTP
Setting Up WordPress For Your Website
Site Theme: You can make your own theme or use someone else’s theme. Once the theme is set, the website will look effective.
Apply Plugins: WordPress is loaded with a lot of plugins; you must pick the right ones that will improve the functionality of the website.
Choose The Menu: You can fix or create menus on any part of the website so learn the best way to place them according to the need of your website.
Widgets: They are different from plugins. Widgets are user interface elements whereas the plugins are a group of files that make changes to the functionality of the website.
Pages And Posts: Understand the difference between pages and post and work on it accordingly.
Content Delivery
You must learn how the content gets delivered to the user. Understand the user of the header, the footer, the index page, the sidebar and other functions of the WordPress that is essential in displaying the contents to the users. You must also learn about the types of posts and make use of the best template to provide contents to the users. Finally, add the necessary plugins that make your website functional and take care of the hooks.
Once you are done with the first post, keep practicing more and more. Experiment with the plugins and start making small modification on your website that will help you to master WordPress in less than few days.
